The 3 Questions Strangers Ask Seniors Before They Rob Them (Never Answer Them)

Most people picture a robbery as a mask, a weapon, a door kicked in. They brace for the loud danger and never notice the quiet one: a friendly voice on the porch or on the phone, asking three polite questions in almost the same order every time. By the time you answer the third, a stranger already knows whether you are worth his trouble. This video is about those three questions, and the three cheap, calm answers that shut every one of them down. June, who spent thirty-eight years making house calls in a county car, walks through each question in turn. The first one tries to learn whether you live alone, and the answer is a sentence you practice out loud and a door-stop wedge alarm that costs eight to ten dollars at the hardware store or Walmart. The second one tries to get past your threshold with a dead phone or a water-company story, and the fix is a few-dollar peephole, a phone kept in your pocket, and the Federal Trade Commission's own rule: shut the door, look up the real number yourself, and call to check. The third is barely a question at all, the "Grandma, do you know who this is?" opening the FTC calls the grandparent scam and the imposter scam, answered with a pad and pen by the phone, the real numbers of your three closest people, and a family password you actually test like a fire drill. The thieves pick the kindest house on the block, not the richest, and they count on your manners. A plan you have already run once beats any four-thousand-dollar security system. Sources and further reading: Federal Trade Commission, consumer advice on the grandparent scam and imposter scams Federal Trade Commission, guidance on utility and door-to-door impostor visits